Living Once Again
by TwilightArc
Summary: Back from the Dark Tournament, Yusuke finds that he can't seem to lead a semi-normal life again. But then again, it's hard to be normal when you're forced to wear pink. And why is he hearing voices?
1. Chapter One

**Living Once Again**

By: Sorano

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Introduction: Directly after the Dark Tournament, Yusuke goes back to his somewhat deceptively normal life… or so he thought. A memory of his childhood comes back to haunt him, literally. He's loosing sleep, doesn't want to eat, he's tired of the world. Just so tired. Then with a flash of pure light, his past illuminates his dark world… and sends him sprawling to literally land on his ass.

Sorano's Note: Shifted actual timeline up a bit and scheduled it to where the Dark Tournament took place during the summer after Yusuke graduates Junior High. The third Saga is non-existent.

Version: **2.0** Major plot and scene changes.

Disclaimer: Ishikoaru Sorano does not own any material copyrighted by Yoshihiro Tagashi. Original characters and original ideas are property of Ishikoaru Sorano.

AIM: FaerieMystic  
Yahoo Email and Messenger: empress(underscore)sorano  
MSN Messenger: type in— LunarDragoness(at)aol(dot)com

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**Chapter One**

_"What do you want for breakfast" A small girl, with shoulder length black hair falling out of its braid, opened the floor cabinet and looked at the boxes of cereal._

_Feeling warm and good, happy and innocent, he sat on the kitchen floor in his yellow pajamas looking at the colorful boxes. "I wan' bran" It was his favorite. It was so yummy!_

_"Bran flakes? Okay." She tugged out the purple box and gave it to him. "There, all yours, Yuyu"_

_Yusuke pulled open the top of the box and stuck his hand in, grabbing a handful of cereal and shoving it into his mouth. The girl pulled out the red box and opened it as well, getting a handful of the colorful pebble cereal and eating it. She looked up when a woman came through the front door, bringing the smell of stale beer with her._

_Her clothes were barely hanging onto her skin. In one hand, she held a dead cigarette and a heavy roll of cash in the other. "Hey kids."_

_"Mommy" Yusuke got up quickly, spilling the cereal box he had been holding. Rushing over to his mother, he threw his small arms around her leg to hug her. He was so glad she was home! He hadn't seen her in three days._

_She patted him on the head and pried him off. "Take care of him." She said to the girl who just stared. His Mommy then went off to sleep in front of the TV._

_There was a confused frown on the young girl's face"When _don't_ I watch him"_

_Then there was a pounding at the door—_

Yusuke Urameshi sat up abruptly in bed and held his head as his pounding heart raged blood in his ears. It hadn't been a bad dream, but it had worried him. Something about the pounding of the door had him feeling something terrible had been about to happen. It shook him, sending chills down to his bones.

He was sweating enough to soak his nightshirt.

There was no going back to sleep, as much as he wished to fall back into his warm bedcovers. Instead, he found himself getting up and trudging to the single bathroom in the apartment. He washed his face, using the cold water to cleanse away whatever the heck that dream had been.

It was four in the morning. Way too early for any sane human. And while he lived in a pretty crazy parallel world from most mortals, he was certainly sane.

At least, that's what he told himself.

He went back into his room, trying to figure the reason he had woken up in the first place. It seemed he had already forgotten. Outside his window, he could see twilight approaching so that it grayed the sky and dimmed the faint stars. There were clouds on the horizon, just like the troubles on the edge of his mind.

His room was sparse and pretty clean considering he hadn't technically lived in it long. This was a basically new apartment, one his mother had acquired after their first place had burned down. Since then, he had been training or on missions, too busy to even leave clothes on the floor.

Taking steps toward his low bed, he sat heavily and ran his hands through his hair. Now he was facing the full-length mirror nailed to the inside of his door. He could see his tired, withdrawn image reflected back at him. There were bruise-colored circles under his glazed coffee brown eyes showing against lightly tanned skin. His short black hair was disorderly, out of place and hanging around his brow. His shoulders slumped as he leaned on his elbows against his knees, his hands held back most of his hair as he held the sides of his head. Would someone looking at him see a powerful young man who had pretty much saved the world by facing one of the highest levels of demons in the one on one match of the century? No, most likely not. As he had observed before, not many other humans knew that demons and ghosts really existed.

But _he_ did. Oh Kami did he ever.

Warm light hit his back as time flew by. The sun was rising, silhouetting his frame, clothed in a baggy white shirt and blue and white pinstriped boxers. Yusuke yawned, felt a sick satisfaction in the popping sound his jaw made, and stretched his arms over his head as if he could touch the ceiling.

Then the door opened to allow his mother to pop into his room. Seeing him awake surprised her, "What are you doing up already?" It wasn't usual for him to be up before five minutes until he had to go to school.

"Hey, what're you doing up at all? Shouldn't you be knocked out in front of the TV" Yusuke asked her sarcasm coating his response.

"You shouldn't talk to me like that, you know."

"Whatever." Yusuke rubbed at his eyes, frustrated.

Atsuko, all long light brown hair, hard alcohol hazed eyes, and lithe underfed figure, stood in the doorway still holding onto the handle. She shook her head and stepped out again. "School today, get dressed. I'll have breakfast ready."

Yusuke doubted that his mother even knew what breakfast was let alone how to cook it.

This was the part he dreaded every morning since becoming a reluctant freshman at Meiou Senior High School. There was a pink and gold uniform waiting for him in his closet, which he would have to wear unless he wanted to dress in his old green uniform, and look equally stupid with short sleeves and pants because he had outgrown it. Sacrifice dignity and wear pink, or forgo an equal amount of pride and look like a pocket protector toting geek. Choices, choices.

Okay, technically the Meiou uniform was fuchsia and gold, but pink was still pink no matter what shade, unless it was red. Damn Kurama for correcting him and putting the insignificant detail into his head.

Yusuke had avoided school the first week of starting term, one to recover from the rigors of the tournament, and two because he didn't want to go to the preppy high school his mother had put him in, insisting that he go there. _How_ he had managed to pass the entrance exam was unexplained and better left so.

This would officially be his first day at school. Did he really want to wear _pink_? What would that do to his image? He _could_ just go to school in sweats and a sleeveless t-shirt, then get kicked out, then spend the whole day doing… what?

Unconsciously, he found himself sliding on the fuchsia slacks and tucking the white undershirt into the hem. He shrugged into the gold trimmed naval-style jacket with the same detached methodology and slid on the shiny black shoes that completed the outfit. By the time his hands reached for the buttons to close up the jacket, he froze and looked at himself in the mirror.

"Great. Just great. I'll be the laughing stock of Tokyo. Tough guy Urameshi wearing pansy pink." He snarled at his reflection.

And he thought, somehow the cold stare he gave to the mirror counteracted the stupidity of the uniform color. He looked… colder, _meaner_ somehow. Maybe the achieved appearance was the same as the look Kurama got when he instinctively knew he was superior to his opponent. Cool and calm, by every means calculating. Yusuke was pretty sure if he went to school with the same snarl then no one would dare mention it.

It would also give him an excuse to pound loud-mouthed punks into the ground if they so much as curled their lip in his direction.

Satisfied with that line of reasoning, he left the jacket unbuttoned, determined to keep some of his punk image, grabbed his empty book bag, and stepped out of his room.

He had forgotten about his hair gel.

"What the hell?" He had gotten as far as the living room when his nose caught a whiff of something burning. "Shit." Dropping the book bag, his enhanced speed had him in the kitchen in half the time it took to flutter an eyelash.

Eggs left on the stove unattended were burning a sickening brown to black. One smooth motion had the pan sliding into the sink, water gushing from the tap, and steam rising from the metal as heat and liquid clashed. With another move, he turned off the electric stove just when his mother walked back in.

"What happened to the eggs" Atsuko looked in the sink, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, and turned off the faucet.

"You let them burn." He turned away and grabbed his book bag from where he had dropped it. "Leave breakfast to the restaurants Mom. I'm out." He caught his mother puffing at her cigarette out of the corner of his eye as he closed the apartment door. 'And so starts another day in hell.'

To his surprise, he saw Kurama waiting for him on the corner of the street, leaning against a lamppost. Mentally, Yusuke reminded himself that in public, Kurama was supposed to be known as Shuichi. "Hey" was his only greeting.

Kurama smiled in return. "Hey yourself. It's about time you tried out school." His bright green eyes scanned Yusuke's attire. "And in almost proper uniform, no less."

Yusuke shrugged and tried not to feel uncomfortable under the other boy's gaze. Only sixteen, Kurama held the knowledge of a three hundred year old demon fox. The fox's spirit was locked inside the human vessel Shuichi, and the result was a confident human with incredibly intense and knowledgeable eyes. It made Yusuke nervous at the same time as comforted.

He initiated the process of walking to the senior high school where they would now be attending together where Kurama would be a year ahead of Yusuke as a sophomore.

The kitsune-human fell in step beside Yusuke as easily as if the matter of them meeting and walking together were routine. "Kuwabara chose not to attend senior high." Kurama kept his eyes focused ahead of him. He was aware of Yusuke's detached mood even if the detective wasn't aware of it himself.

"He wouldn't have the brains to get into a senior high anyway." He mumbled, swinging his book bag and using his other hand to finger comb his gel-less hair.

"Keiko was very surprised when you managed to pass Meiou's entrance exam. She told me that you usually get grades below thirty points."

Yusuke darted a glance to his redhead companion. Kurama's voice hadn't snide or disbelieving, just innocently curious.

"Seems I misjudged you then, right Yusuke? I once said that your dumb luck had looked like brilliant strategy to me. Maybe it really was strategy. Latent, at least." He paused to consider the idea seriously. Yusuke really was more of a physical person. Supposing he was of above average intelligence, he wouldn't be so inclined to show it. Using fists, instead his brain, was more the detective's way.

They entered the Meiou Senior High School grounds. Kurama felt Yusuke tense up beside him. The detective shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to notice the frightened stares, whispered rumors, squinty-eyed cringes, and all around goggling. It seemed the presence of the infamous punk Yusuke Urameshi in the prestigious school had spread like wildfire.

"Really scared of you, aren't they"

Yusuke stopped in the middle of the courtyard and stared blankly into space.

_Yusuke looked up to the girl who walked beside him down the water channel. It was a balmy day and the water in the channel was going by them lazily. He stumbled a few times, unable to get his small legs to keep up with the girl's steps. _

_They walked that way to avoid the bigger boys who wanted to hurt them if they saw them. She held her favorite book in her free hand. It was a thick leather bound book and though she couldn't read it well, she still cherished it. She looked down at him and smiled"Almost to the house, Yuyu."_

_"You aren't going anywhere." Three boys with their backs to the sun pounded their fists into their palms. Each had bangs that covered their eyes or shadowed them._

_The girl shoved Yusuke behind her and looked threateningly at the big kids"You leave us alone, you big bullies"_

_"Oh, really scary ain't ya" The biggest boy who stood in the middle pounded his fist again and stepped towards them—_

'What is that?' but already the daydream slipped away from him. Yusuke tried grabbing for the tendrils of the dream, but came up with nil.

Kurama shook his arm gently "Yusuke, snap out of it. Yusuke?"

"I'm fine Kura—I mean, Shuichi." He brushed the concerned spirit vessel away and shook himself into the present. On a change of subject, "Do you think Keiko is here yet?"

Yes, she had enrolled to the school as well. Her presence was most of the reason why Atsuko had pushed Yusuke to attend the senior high. If Keiko was around then it was mostly assured that he would get at least _some_ work done.

"I would believe so seeing as how she's coming our way now. Brace yourself Detective. She looks in the mood to improvise you as a punching bag." For his safety as well as amusement, Kurama stepped away from Yusuke far enough to remain out of line of fire and still watch the soap opera unfold.

"Yusuke! I can't believe you. How could you miss the first week of school? Do you want to get expelled?"

"I was planning on it." He grumbled.

Keiko, short tawny hair getting a little messy as she lashed out, stepped on Yusuke's poor unsuspecting foot. "You manage to get into this high class school and you're telling me you _want_ to get kicked out? Button up your jacket and run a real comb through your hair Yusuke, you're a mess."

"Keiko…" His sigh was in desperation to escape the motherly hooting of Keiko Yukimura. "I swear you're a million times worse than my mother." Yusuke neatly sidestepped and walked with as much dignity as he could muster, book bag under one arm, back straight, into his new school.

This left Kurama to rationalize with Keiko until she dashed away to class when the bell rang.

Luckily, Yusuke didn't have the same home classroom as Keiko. That would have been the deal breaker. He liked Keiko, she was his first friend and one of the few people he could trust, but she really was annoying if she hung around too much.

But when he stepped into the room, five minutes late though he had been on time for school, he wished Keiko were with him. It was stupid to want support on the first day of school, but the blatant stares, the flinching, shrinking away, the hushed murmurs, were enough to make him turn around and walk away from school altogether.

He would have too, but the perky blonde teacher for first period got up from her desk and met him at the doorway. "Yusuke Urameshi?" She smiled, ignoring his unbuttoned jacket that was strictly against the dress code.

He immediately tensed up "Yeah, that's me."

She took his hand, pulling it from its safe haven in his pocket, shook it and patted him on the shoulder with her other hand. "It's very nice to see you. My name is Ms. Hirotada. I heard that you got one of the highest scores on the entrance exams. I believe you'll do fine here at Meiou." Gesticulating towards a seat on the first row closest to the windows, she brought his attention to a seat in the middle of the row. "Please sit down and we'll begin class."

Off balance from the teacher's unashamed consideration, he took his seat with a shrug.

Miss Hirotada taught English for his first subject. She was fluent in it. She was also as sprightly as a sunbeam on a coffee high. Yusuke thought he should find it annoying after the first five minutes, but she taught well, and even though he hadn't been paying attention, he had been able to pick up a few English words.

His eyelids drooped low as he gazed out the window at the sky beyond and the blossoming peach trees along the edges of the courtyard. He felt warm, easy, and safe. It wasn't often that he felt safe… ever.

_Giggling laughter sang in his ears and he looked up. She was looking down at him with warm brown eyes, the spring sun putting peach blossom color to her cheeks. The color was in perfect tandem with the pale pink flowers growing from the branches surrounding her._

_"Up." Yusuke told her._

_She shook her head. "Uhuh Yusuke. You're not big enough to climb."_

_"Up." He folded his arms across his young chest and pouted. "Up." He argued again. He wanted to be up in the tree too. He didn't like it when he couldn't reach her._

_Her eyes became dreamy and she looked away, to the side, her vision filled with the pale spring delicacies. "Spring, so much of it around. It's pretty, isn't it?"_

_He stared up, helpless. The area felt too open. He wanted her to come down and hold his hand. Yusuke was only four years old, he wasn't safe on his own._

_Yusuke sniffed audibly and with speed only a young child would admire, she jumped down from the tree. The tree hadn't been very tall, but it was big to him, and his eyes widened in wonder as she landed without getting hurt._

_Then she was there, her arms around him, pulling him down to sit with her under the small tree. "I love you Yuyu. Always remember."_

"Urameshi? Wake up, class has ended. You can get up and stretch before your next teacher comes in." Miss Hirotada shook his shoulder.

He had his head resting in the fold of his arms on the desk. Yusuke hadn't even realized he had slumped forward to go to sleep. "Huh? Oh, yeah."

While she walked away and prepared to go to her next class, Yusuke worked the kink out of his shoulder and tried to recall why he was thinking of peach blossoms. He could almost smell the flowers.

Probably just the window open or some girl's perfume.

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After school found him at the soccer field watching Keiko kick butt at practice. She looked good in a those tiny shorts.

He was sitting on one of the metal bleachers and leaning back on another with his elbows, his feet propped on the bleacher below him. His white undershirt was untucked, his jacket discarded behind him.

"It's four o'clock Yusuke, I thought you would be gone." Kurama came out of nowhere, in his usual style, and sat down on the bleachers with Yusuke.

"Yeah well, Keiko asked me to walk her home later and she has the stupid soccer thing. Why do people want to join clubs anyway?"

"Yes, why _do_ people want to socialize?" The redhead asked humorously.

"Ha ha. What clubs do you have?" Yusuke pulled his eyes away from the field and glanced at the other boy.

Kurama shrugged, "Painting sometimes. When I feel like it." He brushed back some of his hair. The gesture meant he was either going to pull out that rose of his or that he was about to dig around in personal business.

Yusuke braced himself.

"Don't be like that, Detective. You've been spacing out ever since we got back from the tournament. Something's bothering you."

He refused to meet the fox's eyes. "Nothing. Nothing is wrong. Leave me alone."

"Well, you know the saying, 'Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.'"

"What?" What did denial have to do with Egypt? It must be one of those smart kid things. "Speak so that I can understand." Stressed, he patted around his pockets for his cigarettes, finding the pack he slid out one health hazard and then dug around his pockets for a lighter.

Genkai had restricted his tobacco intake during training, and he hadn't been able to find a vending machine on Hanging Neck Island. Now that his life was back to some kind of normalcy, he had also gone back to smoking.

By the time he had the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, he had thought his situation through. Who better to talk to then someone with three hundred years of experience? "I've been… I don't know. I wake up startled like I'm about to be attacked. This morning in class I fell asleep and… there were peach trees." Okay, now he just sounded stupid. So he shut up.

"Dreams."

"Get out of my head." Yusuke glared at the second year student next to him.

Kurama laughed softly and shook his head slowly. "Dreams can haunt anybody. You shouldn't let them get to you." He wasn't looking at Yusuke; he was staring off into space as if speaking from experience. "About a memory or a premonition"

"Like I said, I don't know. They come and go pretty quick." He shrugged and tried to settle down. "Must not have been important."

The coach blew the whistle signaling the end of practice. Telling the players to go to the locker room and then get some rest at home. Keiko immediately started towards the bleachers.

Kurama got up to let Yusuke go. Before he went, Yusuke barely caught the words he left behind. "If it isn't important, then you wouldn't stress over it."

"Uh…" Yusuke couldn't reply because Kurama was already out of sight.

Talking to Kurama had always been disconcerting, but why it should shake him more so now was even more rattling. The fox-human had a point though. If the dreams he had been trying to remember weren't important, then he wouldn't and shouldn't worry.

But he _was_ worried, so didn't that mean the dreams were important?

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_The pounding at the door came again. Atsuko was knocked out in front of the TV so the girl went to see who it was through the window._

_A man, burly sort of, with dark blonde hair and a shadowed face stood on the welcome mat outside. He was dressed like all the other Black Suits that would come to their home to see Atsuko. But, they were usually the same Black Suits and not one yet had dark blonde hair._

_The girl hissed between her teeth as she pushed Yusuke a little towards the living room. "Go wake Atsuko. Tell her someone's at the door."_

Yusuke sat up quickly after breaking from the dream. He was once again sweating profusely and his heart pounded furiously. He tumbled out of bed and stood on shaking legs as he tried to get his thoughts in order and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The realization that he was a mess when he got up in the morning after only two hours of sleep wasn't particularly comforting. The bags under his eyes were deeper, darker. His skin was pasty and he was a little thinner. The dreams had been taking their toll.

It had gotten to the point where he was doing everything to avoid going to sleep. Even homework and studying. _That _was how low he had sunk.

Sometimes he would prowl the less civilized streets at night, just daring anyone to try to make a move to take him. He had put three yakuza leaders in the hospital and had enjoyed making a few street punks wet their pants from the scare he put into them.

In the past week, he had also taken down two low class demons and survived a date with Keiko.

The date had been the worst thing. Shopping, a chic lunch at an uptown restaurant, lattes at a café… Yusuke had to dress up for the whole thing, wear suitable clothes, and what not. He had been uncomfortable with the date from start to finish. But she was his friend, and he liked to see her happy. Seeing her happy with him was the only thing that kept him from ditching the suit jacket and bolting.

He decided he wasn't going to school today. So he dressed in what street clothes would fit him and stepped out of the house intending to take a walk.

But Kurama was waiting for him. In street clothes; a light brown ankle length duster, white shirt, and blue jeans with tennis shoes. He was leaning against the lamppost as always and gave a flicker of a smile when Yusuke walked over.

"I'm skipping school, but what are you doing out of uniform?"

"It's Sunday, Yusuke."

"Shit, it is?" He flinched. Now he was losing track of the days. Just great.

Kurama, with his hair pulled gently back in a low tail, straightened and started walking down the street. Yusuke followed out of habit and they walked in silence for a few blocks until they crossed a busy street and headed south. Kurama eventually stopped at a water channel and sat on the grassy slope.

To Yusuke's uneasy surprise, he realized that the water channel was the same one from his dream.

"Tell me about it. It helps to talk." Kurama picked at a blade of grass and waited for Yusuke to sit down.

He did, reluctantly at first, then tiredly. Kami, he was so tired. "Her name is Maori, I think." What possessed him to tell the human/spirit about his memories, Yusuke would never know. To calm himself he took out a cigarette and lit it. Puffed on it a bit.

"Maori? Lovely name."

The wind picked up and tried to hush Yusuke's next words"It was the only nice thing my mother ever gave her." He looked over to Kurama to gauge his reaction, but his face was impassive and still. The cigarette was half gone with Yusuke's next intake.

"The dreams are about her. She's someone you didn't remember until now"

He didn't even nod"She was six the last time I saw her, I was four. I can't remember any further than that."

"What brought this on" Kurama picked at another piece of grass and watched the shallow water of the channel run its course.

_"I'm glad you're the only kid I got Yusuke. Another would be a big hassle if they had your attitude and manners! Or lack _thereof_." Atsuko flung her dead cigarette at Yusuke as he walked through the door._

_He had just come back from the Dark Tournament._

"You didn't even know it was the dreams disturbing you until last week." Kurama finally looked at him.

"And I couldn't remember details until two days ago." He let the wind push him back to lie on the grass. He closed his eyes as if to see the memories and dreams play like movies on the back of his eyelids. The small raven-haired girl named Maori with brown eyes, telling him she loved him. To remember that, always.

"I don't have a clue what happened after that guy came to our door."

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Sorano's Note: Wow, major mondo revision. Did you like it? I hope you did. This chapter goes by a little quick paced, but it will probably slow down in the next two or three chapters to allow more of the storyline to show itself. Stay tuned!


	2. Chapter Two

**Living Once Again**

By: Sorano & Sanomi

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Sorano's Note: Okay obviously I did something wrong because reviews for chapter one were at an all time low in my history of posting fiction. That is SO sad. (cries) But I will persevere! This _will_ be one of the most popular fics in the YYH category with the help of you my readers who review and recommend my story. Thanks, ahead of time.

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**Chapter Two**

"You're too thin Yusuke!" Keiko announced, pinching his arm. "Look at this, I can pull at your skin. It's practically hanging off of you!" Brown eyes angled down as she looked worriedly at him. "You have to eat something."

Botan,cotton candy blue hair and bubblegum pink kimono, closed in on him until she was right in his face. "I can pack all my clothes in those bags under your eyes," she quipped, but there was concern in her eyes as well

"Yeah, Urameshi, you could use a dive at the local fast-food place." Kuwabara yanked Yusuke's head back by his hair, putting his face under the strict light of the newly changed light bulb in his room.

Yusuke's eyebrow twitched, and his hands clenched into fists. "_I'm FINE!_"

His three friends jumped back a safe distance away. Botan waved her hands appealingly, "Sorry, sorry, Yusuke, we just thought you didn't look well."

He stood up and kicked at a pile of clothes on his floor, "Yeah, I get that I look like death warmed over. Oh! That's right, _I am_." He growled under his breath and stomped out of his room, nearly knocking over Kurama, who was coming down the hall.

The fox-vessel's quick reflexes saved the tray of tea he had been carrying to Yusuke's room. Kurama moved out of the way to let Yusuke pass, as it seemed no one was going to stop the detective from doing exactly what he wanted. Kurama watched after him, tray in hands. Keiko, Botan, and Kuwabara stuck their heads outside Yusuke's room, one over the other arranged by height, as they stared after Yusuke as well.

There was definitely something wrong with the spirit detective.

Yusuke stopped in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, grabbing the first things that came to his hands-- which happened to be a beer and poptarts. He plopped down on a stool, not even bothering to wonder what poptarts were doing in the fridge and opened the box. "See! I'm eating!" He said around a mouthful of pastry, waving over his head the one he had taken a bite out of.

"Beer and poptarts, Yusuke? Really." Kurama walked back to the kitchen and snatched the beer can before Yusuke could protect it. "You'll get sick. You need more nutritious food if you plan to recover, _then_ you can be blatantly stupid about the things you eat." He smiled lightly, but the look he gave Yusuke was disappointed.

The spirit detective didn't meet his gaze, staring down at his feet, and swallowed the bite of poptart with difficulty.

Kurama sighed and put the beer back in the refrigerator, exchanging it for milk that was still a few days from developing into a sentient being. Then he put it back, after giving it a startled look.

To hide his discomfort, Yusuke grumbled about nosy friends as he ate the poptarts. Puu, having come with Keiko, sat on Yusuke's head and chirped happily at having his perch back. The little blue bird-like thing was like a stuffed animal and its presence only made Yusuke grumble more about squishy playthings using his head to sit on.

Botan pulled herself onto the kitchen counter that marked the boundary from the hallway and the kitchen. "Anyway, about that mission."

And that was the real reason everyone but Hiei was in his house. Botan had a new mission and everyone had to know what it was about so they made sure they knew what he was getting into and where he would be going.

"I don't feel like it." Yusuke said distractedly as Kurama put a reasonably safe glass of orange juice in front of him, pushing it closer to suggest that Yusuke drink it. Theliquid sloshed a little in the tall glass. Did he really need to drink that much? A nod from Kurama said that he had better. So he chugged it down.

"Yusuke! You can't just _not_ take this mission. This is important! Lord Koenma classified it as a class A." Botan slammed down the file that she had pulled from one kimono sleeve.

"I still have the right to refuse, don't I?"

Kuwabara picked it up before Yusuke could. "Hey! This looks like four missions in one."

"Bingo! But it's more like one mission broken into four parts. You see there are four artifacts that Lord Koenma needs to put in the Vault in order to keep the Mortal, Spirit, and possibly Demon Worlds safe. He's been accumulating information on them since way before we were born. Well-- I think you were a teenager when he started, Kurama." She smiled at the red-head.

Kurama got a whimsical look in his green eyes, "So a little less than three hundred years?"

"Bingo. And these artifacts are really important Yusuke! If they fall into the wrong hands then it could be really disastrous."

"Like how it would have been disastrous if those Artifacts of Darkness had gotten into the wrong hands-- which they did-- and they were in the Vault to begin with?" Yusuke asked with venom lacing his words. Kami, he did _not_ feel like doing anything. He wanted to go to bed, he wanted to sleep forever. But at the same time, he didn't want to sleep because he didn't want to dream anymore. Puu chirped.

Botan flinched in response to his biting comment. "Well, this is different. The Vault has top-notch security now."

Kurama gave a short laugh.

"Stop that!" Botan complained, eyeing the fox.

Keiko snatched the file from Kuwabara. "Disks?" She held up a picture to look at it more closely, "You want Yusuke to get a few little disks?"

The grim reaper shook her head quickly, "They're not just any disks! Those are the Incarnates, four powerful objects made by higher beings that existed a long timeago. When Spirit and Demon Worlds were new and the Mortal World wasn't even a beginning thread in the grand design of the universe. There's this whole creepy legend that goes along with it. It's in that file, just in case you wanted to know. You know, knowledge being power and all."

"There's a lot of information here Botan, this will take a while, won't it?" Kurama took the file from Keiko and inspected it, Yusuke watching furtively. Whatever hisfriend thought about it would help make Yusuke's final decision on the whole mission.

When Kurama's eyes widened, Yusuke perked up and tried to read the file too. "It looks like for once you're going to be doing detective work, Detective." Kurama's lips twitched up in a smile. "There are still many pieces to each puzzle missing, and it seems this one about the Light Incarnate is the most lacking of clues."

"Light Incarnate?" Yusuke's poptarts sat on the counter, abandoned.

"The four Incarnates represent four influences on the universe. Light, Dark, Power, and Wisdom. The most information we have is on the Power Incarnate, but the Light only has a few vague references and a sketchy informant." Kurama passed a photograph to Yusuke. "Botan, what's this sheet here? It looks like brail."

The photograph handed to him showed carvings in white rock. Black lines drawn on the photograph outlined the lines carved in the stone, making it easy to see four etchings of what were probably supposed to be the Incarnates. All they looked like to Yusuke were four circles with diamonds inscribed into them. Another photograph that Kurama absently handed to him showed a different carving, outlined in black marker, of some sort of spherical device.

"That's what we thought at first but it's supposed to be characters in a language. Probably of those higher beings."

The fox held up another picture for everyone to see. "And the statue of an angel?" The statue, made of some kind of white rock like the one with the carvings, was a male angel with his wings outstretched as far as they would go, clothed in fabric that bunched at his shoulder and fell over the rest of his body. He held his right hand clenched into a fist over his left shoulder and his left hand was closed at his side like the statue had once held something heavy, though there was nothing in the hand now. The statue's back was impossibly straight. The skin around the angel's soulless eyes was carved in a way that made the angel seem aloof but stern.

"Part of the clues?" Botan shrugged, "That sketchy informant is the only informant we have for all four Incarnates and he said that was the statue that holds the Power Incarnate, and that the other ones would be with or taken from similar statues. It's in the report."

_"Look, Yuyu! It's a falling angel!"_

_He looked up to where Maori was pointing to in the night sky. He didn't see anything that was falling. "Huh?" He shivered a little, it was cold. Scooting a little closer he managed to get under Maori's arm so she hugged him to her._

_"Don't worry, Yuyu. There's supposed to be lots of falling angels tonight. Miss Teacher said so." She patted him on the head._

_Sitting on the roof of their little, beaten, brown car they waited for his mother to come pick them up. She had left them with the car while she went with a stranger-man to a station. She said that the car needed gas for them to go anywhere. His mother would be right back, she promised. Until then, Maori said they could watch the sky._

_He watched the poor sky that had holes in it after being pricked with needles of light from the sun. Maori told him to keep looking and in the next minute saw the falling angel. It was a line of white, streaking across the sky. "Angel!" _

"Yusuke!" Keiko cried out.

"What the--!!" There was a crash as Yusuke and the chair he had been sitting on collided with the floor. Puu flapped around in a circle before settling in Keiko's arms.

Four faces looked down at him with even more concern. Yusuke, still half stuck in his memory, could only mutter "Ow" and close his eyes. Their concern about him was wearing very thin on his already fraught nerves.

_Then there was a pounding at the door--_

"Yusuke?"

_She looked down at him and smiled, "Almost to the house, Yuyu."_

Someone helped him sit up and he made the effort to massage the memories away by rubbing at his temples where the ache of a headache was starting to build up. "I'm fine." No, he wasn't.

"Are you sure?" Botan asked.

_Giggling laughter sang in his ears and he looked up._

He had never been so unsure in his life. Yusuke blinked slowly, shook his head a little to rattle around the metaphorical rocks in his hollow skull, and sighed deeply. "Yeah I'm sure. So where do we start, Kurama?" The last bit was to hopefully get back on the subject of the case and off the subject of Yusuke.

Kurama took Yusuke's spacing off in stride, a little used to it by now. The red-head looked at the file, sifted through it, and finally pulled out a thick section of it. "Retrieving the Power Incarnate would be our best bet. The location of the statue has already been given to us."

"And where **i**s it?" He asked from his position on the floor. Yusuke wasn't really inclined to move any time soon; he didn't have the energy.

Acting as if he didn't notice the detective sprawled across the kitchen floor, the fox replied nonchalantly, "Rome, the capital of Italy."

"Rome!" Keiko's shout rocked the empty juice glass still on the counter. "You can't go to Rome! That's so far away!"

Kuwabara scratched at his chin, "Well, the Spirit World is pretty far away too and Urameshi's been there. I don't know how I'm going to get the time off from the body shop though."

Botan nodded, "It is a bit of a trip, isn't it? I wonder if Lord Koenma will spring for plane tickets for all of us."

Chewing on her bottom lip, Keiko nodded to them. "I can put aside a little of school. A week at most."

Oh no. Were they actually thinking about what they were saying? Apparently, they had all forgotten one very important fact. Yusuke made the effort to stand up, finding the energy from somewhere. The movement had everyone's attention by the time he had gotten his expression into the most pissed look he could muster. Keiko and Botan were instantly wary.

"_You_ are not going anywhere." He said to Keiko, "And _you_ have dead people to escort to Spirit World." Botan cringed. When Yusuke turned to Kuwabara, the idiot opened up his mouth, ready to argue. Yusuke was having none of it. "And _you_ aren't even an official Spirit Detective, you have a job, a damn kitten to support, and your powers have been off lately so you wouldn't be help to me anyway." Kuwabara's ugly face set into stubborn determination. "_No_."

"You're going to do the case by yourself, Yusuke? That's a lot of work and it takes smarts to be a real detective..." Keiko trailed off as the room became suffocating.

Out of all the years he had known Keiko, he didn't think he had ever been so angry with her. Correction: He had never been _remotely_ angry before when it came to her. Annoyed with her, yes; worried about her, yes; had been occasionally frustrated with her, of course, Keiko was one of the most frustrating girls on the planet. But he had _never_ been genuinely angry.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Keiko. I know I've never been the brainiest, but I'm not entirely stupid." Look at where he had ended up for high school. He had to have some sort of smarts to pass that entrance exam. "And I never said I was going alone. I asked Kurama where 'we' should start."

Kurama, having been perusing the file and reading everything in it while the confrontation had been going on, finally looked up. "Yusuke is quite right. You three have your lives and jobs to do and none of you have any obligation to help. Hiei and I, however, work for Koenma and have been officially been apart of Yusuke's team since the Tournament. We'll be with Yusuke, don't worry." His gaze went to Yusuke. "Detective, calm down. You don't have enough energy right now to spend it on getting worked up. They're just used to helping and being with you, that's all. They want to make sure you'll be all right. Feel flattered that they care."

"Right." Yusuke righted his chair and sat on it once more, exhausted once more once the anger had drained way. "Right." He repeated more for the sake of convincing himself.

Botan perked up once more. "Well since I don't get to go with you then, I better give you something." She reached inside her kimono sleeve and pulled out a sphere of glass. "Spirit Detective item number fifty-two! The Orb of Finding."

"How's a ball of glass supposed to find anything?" Kuwabara poked it, making it roll in Botan's hand.

"When you fill it with spirit energy, it will activate and follow your command. Just tell it to find something and off it'll go."

"So why didn't Pacifier Breath use that to find the Incarnates?" He took another bite of poptart and grimaced at the stale bread taste and fake strawberry filling. At least he was eating.

The Grim Reaper frowned as she rolled the orb in her hand. "Because it can only follow really simple commands like, 'Find a place to hide' or 'Find the TV remote' and you have to be really specific when you tell it to do something or it might find something you didn't want. Say something obscure like, 'find money' and it will find the wallet in your pocket. And even then, it only hovers in the immediate area of wherever the target is. Try to tell it to find an Incarnate of anything and it would break with the number of possibilities."

Yusuke grunted, unconvinced. Puu chirped a little and wiggled out of Keiko's grip to flap over to Yusuke and sit on his head again. He chirped a little more and gripped Yusuke's hair tightly.

"What's wrong Puu?" Keiko tried to take him back.

Puu chirped, cooed, and flapped his stubby wings at her. "Puu-u-u-u!" The spirit beast was determined to stay on Yusuke's head and make a fuss about it.

Unfortunately, Yusuke knew exactly what the little blue ball of annoying cuteness wanted. "Stay with Keiko."

"Pu-u-uu!" More flapping and yanking of Yusuke's hair.

Yusuke slumped in his seat and rolled his eyes upwards, "You're not coming with me."

Puu chirped indignantly.

"Fuzzball wants to go with ya, huh? Why don't you let it?" Kuwabara picked up one of the poptarts Yusuke hadn't started on yet and chowed down.

"I'm not taking him with me." It was like an unspoken agreement that Keiko would keep him so that she always knew how he was feeling, though oddly, lately the tiny spirit beast hadn't been reflecting Yusuke's feelings, health, and mental state at all. He wondered slightly about that.

'He hasn't been around you enough. He's losing his connection to you.'

"What do you mean he's losing his connection?" Yusuke looked around the group in his kitchen, trying to figure out who had just mumbled that mumbo jumbo.

Kurama immediately went from casually detached from the conversation to deeply concerned. "Yusuke, no one said anything about connections."

"Someone said something."

The four of them watched Yusuke like he had gone mad. Puu chirped.

'Take him with you.'

Yusuke didn't see anyone move their lips.

"Great, this is just so fucking great. I'm going to bed." He stood up and shoved away from the counter. "Kurama, you can tell Hiei about this. I'll catch a day of zees and then we'll figure out what to do tomorrow."

"All right, Yusuke. You shouldn't have any trouble sleeping. The sedative should kick in another minute of two." Kurama said with a calming smile and hidden laughter.

Yusuke stopped before disappearing into the hallway. "The orange juice?"

A nod.

He left his friends and went to his room, carting his spirit pest as he went. Now that Kurama mentioned it, he _was_ getting sleepy; he just hadn't been able to tell between induced sleep and the state of exhaustion that wore on him these days. Closing his door behind him, he collapsed onto his bed. More memories flittered like butterflies through his head as well as the comprehension that what he had heard was a separate voice in his head that was in no way his own. He was asleep in an instant, with Puu making a nest of the sheets beside Yusuke, and he dreamed about falling angels and stupid disks called Incarnates.

* * *

Kurama had to calm down Botan and Keiko who had immediately started chattering about Yusuke's strange behavior. The girls didn't understand and Kuwabara was just as lost as they were. He contemplated telling them what was wrong with the detective, but he didn't know if Yusuke would approve. If the younger boy had not said a word about it to his closest friends, then it most likely meant he didn't want them to know.

The again, Yusuke was endearingly stubborn when it came to revealing anything about himself. The only reason Kurama had ever gotten him to talk was because he knew which buttons to push and at what time. Yusuke being too exhausted to guard against personal questions was also a large factor.

He ushered them out of the Urameshi's small apartment and sent them on their way, promising to tell them when the team was planning to leave. None of them questioned why Kurama stayed and closed the door behind them. He did though. He wondered why he would care so much. His debts to Yusuke had been paid long ago.

Atsuko still wasn't home from wherever she went during the days. Yusuke was alone with a tiny blue bird that wasn't good for much of anything besides looking cute. Yusuke was essentially defenseless while the sedative kept him under. If any demons in the area sensed Yusuke's weakness then the detective would be in serious trouble.

The files lay half-read on the counter where he had left them. Picking them up, he went over the information. A hunch told him that the mission wasn't at all what it seemed.

Hours passed and Saturday afternoon fled to make way for evening. Kurama worked over the file, having organized the information into relevant piles and made significant notes. A call to the airport and a delve into his and Hiei's funds from Spirit World had secured three tickets to Rome and a long distance phone call snagged them a hotel reservation. The hotel closest to the museum was almost booked to capacity, leaving only economy priced single bedrooms to reserve.

When Atsuko didn't show up at six o'clock, Kurama decided to put away the case and check on the detective.

One look inside the room showed him what he wanted to see. Yusuke was in a deep sleep and didn't look as if he were suffering bad dreams, though the random eye movement suggested he was dreaming something.

"Like a mother hen."

Kurama turned smoothly and let the bedroom door click shut. "I was wondering if you would come find me when I didn't show up for dinner."

"Hn." Hiei, the third member of the Spirit World Team was a fire and ice demon. Hiei's height—excluding thehair—reached to Kurama's elbow, but being small in stature didn't mean the demon was any less deadly. Maybe more so. His small height was made up for by incredible speed and precise sword skills.

"We have a case." Kurama nodded in the direction of the kitchen.

"I know. Koenma told me."

"Do you want to read the files?"

"I just want to know when we leave." Typical little demon. Clever and quick, Hiei wasn't the type to dwell on details unless it suited him.

"In about a day. Let him sleep first."

"Hen."

"I don't think I've ever leaned toward a gender change, let alone a species change. And how can you relate me to a chicken when foxes are notorious for making lunches of them?"

Hiei's dark red eyes glinted, "Hn."

Kurama sighed. Hiei never was a conversationalist. Oh well. "We're taking a plane by the way." The other demon went stiff for a moment. "Don't worry, Kuwabara won't be there so you can be as afraid as you want to be."

"I'm not afraid of heights." Hiei defended as he followed Kurama back to the kitchen. "I like heights."

"I never said you were afraid of heights." Kurama smirked slightly. No, Hiei wasn't afraid of heightsHe was afraid of flying.

The trip to Italy would certainly be entertaining.

* * *

* * *

Sanomi: (blinks) My it feels odd having an author's note in someone else's story... well, there's always a first, ya know? Sorano here claims that I'm her co-author-- but we all know that's not true. She comes up with most of this stuff herself. I'm just the editor and occasional sounding board. The one thing I am responsible for (and proud of) would be the nearly-sentient old milk. XP


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